Towers and Titans
by Chibi-Reaper
Summary: Who doesn't like enchanted boardgames? Especially the kind that suck you right into the action. Possible cross with Gold Digger and Sailor Moon later.
1. Chapter 1

Towers and Titans

xxx

By this time, Ranma really should have known better.

But to know what I'm talking about, you must first know _who_ I am talking about, yes? And for those who already know, I ask that you allow your minds to wander for a moment while I explain to those that do not.

Ranma Saotome, for however short a time, was a regular boy born to eccentric parents. That short, sweet time of normality was not to last. His father was a martial artist of more than mediocre yet less than examplary skill, and desired that his son exceed him eventually. His mother wished only for her little boy to grow up to be what she considered a man amongst men... or what others would consider a perverted, philandering casanova with no control whatsoever over his own impulses. In the end a contract was signed, allowing his father to take Ranma upon a long term training trip, so long as when he and his son returned, the boy would be that nebulously defined 'Man among Men'. Should they fail, both would have to commit ritual suicide.

Is it any surprise, with such parents, that things swiftly began to go wrong for the poor boy? At first, the trip was normal enough, yes... but Genma, the father, had a bad habit of not being able to keep his hands to himself and, through the course of the trip, stole many things that a wiser thief would have left untouched. That he sold them later, for far less than their true value, mattered not. He was the one who stole them, so the curses and bad karma accumulated upon him... and his son. Then came the Neko-ken, the first in a truly long string of very bad ideas.

The years passed in much a similar manner as they always had, bad karma and curses accumulating upon the pair. They didn't really notice... after all, magic wasn't real, was it? So all of this bad luck and stupidity... it was all coincidence. Then came Jusenkyo, the valley of cursed springs where they, in their arrogance and foolishness, dared to train. The magic of Jusenkyo selected suitable curses for them. For Genma, who had slightly plump since the beginning of this trip, and was now grossly overweight, had bad eyesight, had gone prematurely bald, and gotten progressively stupider and greedier, he was cursed by Jusenkyo to turn into a large, fat panda with the touch of cold water. For the boy, who had grown up rather well in spite of the pileup of malevolent curses and karmic backload, it also chose a fitting curse, one that would hopefully break one of his most foolish beliefs... that women could not become strong, and were only fit to be protected by the male martial artists. With the curse of Nyanniichuan, turning him into a young girl. The curses were reversible with hot water, but only until the next time they came into contact with cold water.

From there, all of the karmic buildup that they'd been able to mostly avoid by keeping on the move began to take its toll, as they returned to Japan, to a friend of Genma's, named Soun. Now I can see that some of you are growing bored, but bear with me for just a few moments longer. Genma and Soun had arranged a marriage between their children, long before they were born, and the two elder daughters were swift to push the responsibility on to the youngest. And that would have been that, were it not for the other suitors. You see, Genma had gotten into the habit of using his son somewhat like a credit card. If he wanted something but couldn't afford it, and either couldn't, or was caught attempting to steal it, he would offer his son in exchange, usually as bride to the owners daughter. For food, money, bar tabs, emergency medical aid... at the very least, if there was only one such incident for every town and city they'd visited on the training trip, there would be no place in Japan that Ranma could go, and not run into one of his estranged fiancees.

That's not to say Soun was guiltless either, as he also had sold a marriage with one of his daughters at least once, but he can be excused in that he had the foresight to have more than one child. For Ranma, all the responsibilities were quickly shoved onto him.

Add several backwater villages of warriors, the Amazons, Musk, and Phoenix tribe, more rivals for the heart of either suitor, an ancient and lecherous master of the martial arts, ghosts, minor demons, other supernatural entities, and bucketloads of cheap, flawed magic to the mix, and stir well. And this does not even cover the madness currently in Nerima.

Ah... and now we come to a point where things come to a crux. If I may have the attention of those who have allowed it to wander, now? Take a moment to clean out your ears, and listen well.

Now, the fathers of the reluctant bride and groom managed, after one of Ranma's more difficult battles, to set up a rushed wedding through a combination of knockout drops in food, blackmail, and bribery, in the sad hopes that once their children were married all the problems would just... go away. Naturally, it was a complete and spectacular failure. Giving up... for the moment... Soun and Genma decided that the wedding would have to be postponed until 'Ranma deals with his excess baggage'. That's not to say that they would stop pressuring their children to get married at the next available opportunity, but that they would also be pressuring Ranma to get rid of all his other suitors, completely overlooking the fact that most of them were Genma's fault in the first place. The only one that wasn't completely Genma's doing was the suitor from the Amazon village, and that was partially his fault as well... nobody had forced either of them to eat her prize.

But really, since the wedding, things had gotten worse and worse. Akane had grown more violent, for whatever reason, and demanded at every turn that he 'get rid of those other tramps'. The other 'Fiancees' had also stepped up their pursuit of him, apparently deciding that the wedding had been partially indicative of his chooosing Akane. Which he hadn't.

Ah, and now we return to where we began. You see, it was someone's birthday. Not a fiancee's, and not his own... he'd actually forgotten exactly when his birthday was... but it was Kasumi's birthday. One of the few people that left Ranma unable to brush such a date off. And so he was looking for something that would make a nice gift.

But you see, after all the trouble he'd went through with flawed magic and cursed items, he really should have known better than to go looking for a birthday gift in one of 'those' sort of stores.

xxx

Ranma sneezed as he entered the musty little corner shop. The place didn't look like much, but it wasn't like he had that much money to spend. And for some reason, his danger sense was buzzing... he brushed it off. These days it was rare that he went five minutes _without_ a little buzz from the danger sense, what with Kodachi, Ucchan, and Shampoo's constant attempts to 'win' him away from Akane, Akane's flaring temper tantrums, and Ryoga, Mousse, and Kuno's constant attacks. Switching to using a real blade against him didn't do much, but it did make Kuno _slightly_ more dangerous.

"Welcome to my shop, Ranma Saotome."

Ranma blinked and turned to the aged and greying shopkeeper.

"How'd you know-"

"Your name? My boy, do you honestly think there's a single person in Nerima who _doesn't_ know your name and description, if only for the sake of avoiding you and the problems trailing in your wake?"

Ranma frowned.

"It's not like it's _my_ fault..."

"No, no, of course not. I know full well that most of your problems are caused, directly or indirectly, by your father. Ah, but enough small talk. Tell me, what can I interest you in? I carry a large range of interesting knicknacks, but those are more for the tourists. Perhaps your looking for jewelry? Or an old movie maybe? Perhaps one of my wide selection of board games?"

"Well... Y'see, it's not for me..."

"Ah! A gift, then? But you don't know what to select... well tell me boy, what is this person like."

Ranma shrugged and detailed Kasumi as much as he could... you know, now that he thought about it, he didn't know much about her. She was just in the background most of the time. Just kinda... there.

"I see... I think I understand. And I know just the thing. You say that she's just the stay at home type? And yet she watches you and your friends keep going out on your little adventures... that must be difficult. And yet, if she actually came along, she'd be in no small amount of danger. Yes... yes, just give me a moment to take this down... yes, here it is. Phwoo!"

As the shopkeeper blew at the dust covering the box, it rose in a cloud and drifted slowly to the floor.

"I think she'd very much enjoy this... Towers and Titans. It's a multiplayer board game, you see, but it's special. It immerses you in a much more realistic experience than other games. In this, she could play as a monk, something like a martial artist, matching your own skill, or a wizard, or any of a number of things."

"Hey... this is great! Thanks! How much?"

"Well... normally, I wouldn't let it go for so little, but I've heard very nice things about miss Kasumi from the other merchants here. I think... yes, I think about one thousand yen should do it nicely. Do keep in mind that my shop has a no refund policy."

One thousand yen... huh. Well that was lucky. He'd brought everything he'd managed to secrete away from Nabiki, and that was just slightly over eleven hundred yen. Close. He thanked the shopkeeper, paid, and left to go wrap the present.

The shopkeeper grinned, and faded away, as did the shop and everything in it. Leaving behind a dusty, empty room with broken, boarded over windows and a locked door.

xxx

The birthday celebration was small. Just the Tendos and the Saotomes. Akane had suggested that she cook for Kasumi as a birthday present.

Kasumi paled, but very politely declined, pointing out that she enjoyed cooking. Really enjoyed it. Much more than puking out her lungs anyway, she carefully didn't say. Somehow, with practice, Akane's cooking had gotten even _worse_. Now she couldn't even make curry, and would routinely burn water... somehow. Akane had been dissappointed, but the rest of the household were happy to have dodged the bullet.

Genma and Soun had both chipped in to buy a gift. A new cookbook! And they mentioned 'subtly' that several of the recipes inside looked very interesting. Perhaps she could try them out? Of course, they would be more than happy to taste test the final result.

Nabiki's idea of a good gift had been some sort of Manga. Ranma hadn't gotten a very good look at it because the second Kasumi had unwrapped it, she'd blushed and stuffed it into her apron.

Then had come Ranma's gift... and her eyes had sparkled when she'd opened it.

"Ara! Ranma-kun... how did you know that I like board games?"

"I... uh... didn't."

"RANMA YOU PERVERT! How dare you stalk my sister!"

By this point, Ranma was almost used to the mallet out of nowhere. It was odd though, that the thing never set off his danger sense. Everything else, he could tell was coming a second or two in advance, and at least attempt to dodge, but that thing caught him off guard every single time.

Still, it only took a few seconds to pry his face out of the floorboards.

"Ara! You shouldn't hit your fiancee you know, Akane-chan."

"But he was being a Pervert!"

"I've gotta admit it Saotome, this is a decent gift. But how _did_ you know what to get?"

"I didn't! I told you! I just told the guy in the shop that I was looking for a gift for Kasumi, an' he suggested this!"

"Ah..."

"Ara, ara! I can't wait to play this!"

"H-hey... Kasumi... the food!"

After a few minutes, everything settled down and they ate, although Akane would still send suspicious glares Ranma's way.

Then Kasumi cleared off the table and set up the game.

xxx

Given that it was such a big box, the playing board took up an understandable amound of space. In the end, it had to be taken out to the dojo and set up on the floor there. It was a fantasy/wilderness scene, with several spots set to place the toy 'towers'.

"Ara, Ara... we need a team of six people to play. Would you?"

Ranma grunted in affirmation. Why not? After all, he'd bought it, so he might as well play it once or twice, even if it was Kasumi's. Akane and Nabiki grudgingly agreed... hey this was Kasumi that was asking! And even Genma and Soun decided that it might be fun. Not as fun as Anything goes Shogi or Go of course, but still amusing, and they'd have to play a couple of time before they learned how to cheat... that is, could come up with an 'Anything goes' variation.

"Ara, is everyone playing then? Okay, now we make characters. Oh my... there are so many things to choose from."

Indeed there were. There were at least three dozen seperate races, and almost twenty different classes. Then there was a long sheet of paper to fill out to determine the specifics of the character.

"You know this is more like an RPG game than just a normal board game." Nabiki noted.

"I wouldn't know... I never played either before."

"Oh my! Will you be needing help, then, Ranma?"

"I... yeah, thanks Kasumi. This thing is really confusing."

Nabiki smirked even as Akane seethed. In the background the fathers quietly mumbled, wondering if maybe it would be best to transfer the engagement. After all, Akane had been making it clear that she didn't want to... nah.

It was nearly a half hour later that everyone had finished their characters.

Genma was a Human Monk. Not very imaginative, as he'd just based the character vaguely off of himself. Soun's was similar, a samurai, except that he'd chosen a different species. A forest elf.

Nabiki had also gone the easy road and made a rogue. It pretty much fit... and as a Drow, she would have no trouble with that route.

Then there was Akane, the half-orc barbarian, armed with a warhammer. Once again, pretty much just photocopying who she was into the game.

Ranma, however, had had the whole thing explained to him by Kasumi. Games like this were for playing as something you weren't. So it wasn't like he had to be a martial artist in the game. And Kasumi had explained the whole system to him, so he understood it much better than the rest did, who had just stayed with stock equipment, except for Soun, who had switched his Katana out for a Naginata.

So now his character was a Dire Were-rat. Three forms... a Humanoid form, which could easily be mistaken for Human at a glance. A three foot long, monster rat form. And a monstrous Hybrid form. He'd chosen this because the entire species of Were-rats and Dire Were-rats had a racial fear of cats. It was like something had slapped him and said 'Duh! How can you be anything else?'. His class had been an afterthought... a Red Mage. Apparently they could not only use both healing and damaging magic, but were perfectly capable with weapons as well and could use all kinds of armor. Kind of a 'Jack of all Trades' class.

And then he'd sacrificed his armor to create an accessory. A pendant that would block that weakness. It wasn't like he would ever find something like that in real life, but nice to dream, right?

And Kasumi...

"Are you sure you wanna make a character like that, Kasumi?"

"Ara... Yes. It's just a game, Ranma-kun... no need to worry about me."

Kasumi had decided to play one of the 'Evil' races. Something called a Tiefling... half demon. And her class? She was a Priestess. Of Kryptani.

In short, she was a necromancer. Sure, she could heal your character... necromancy and healing magic were apparently suprisingly closely related in this game... but if you died, she couldn't bring you back to life. Just turn you into a shambling zombie. Oh well, just have to make sure that their characters didn't die. That shouldn't be a problem.

"Alright, everyone put their token on the board... everyone ready? Alright, now... Ara... are we playing seperately, or as a team?"

"What's the point of this game, actually, Kasumi-chan?" Soun asked.

"Ara... one of the towers has an object we have to find. Find it, and we win. It seems rather simple, but I haven't read the full way through the rulebook yet..."

"So if we played in two teams, it would be a race to see who finds this item first? In that case, maybe we should play it all together the first time, and seperate up the second?"

"Excellent idea, Nabiki-chan! That's exactly what we'll do!"

"Ara... so we all play together then? Alright, then lets play!"

Kasumi released the dice in her hand... and the second they hit the board, all six players vanished. The tokens on the board, on the other hand, swelled upwards and morphed into very familiar bodies.

A lavender cat's eyes widened as she fell off the outside windowsill where she'd been watching from, wondering if she should ask to join in and play with her Airen. Great-grandmother _had_ to be told about this.

xxx

A.N.

Eh, pretty short, but it's the first chapter. What can you do? And I didn't really plan anything out before-hand, just took a concept and ran with it. In those terms, I think this turned out pretty good, even with the long, Dumbledoresque bit at the beginning.

And I know somebody is going to ask 'why a wererat? Why not a werecat?' Frankly, that plot twist never made sense to me. I mean, come on... the guy's terrified of cats! If he turns into one, then nothing good will come of it. Even if you have an experienced aura mage (coughTheocough) then just fixing the Neko-ken after the fact to deal with the problem never made much sense either. Second point is that he's a _DIRE_ were-rat.

For example, compare a wolf, with a Dire wolf. In some of the games I've played, the dire wolves get to five feet tall and seven or eight feet long... huge bastards. Now take that and consider what implications there are to putting the word 'Dire' in front of were-rat. Oh, yeah. There will be a cross with Gold Digger. He will meet Gothwrain. Gothwrain will be impressed. Aside from that... 'always in motion is the future'. I haven't decided yet.

But first they've got to get out of the magic boardgame. That... might take a while.


	2. Chapter 2

Towers and Titans

xxx

"This is fascinating. Why, I can feel the flow of magic surrounding this thing. And look at the little miniatures on the board... can they see us? No... no they're moving, but I think it's just that they're reacting... ah, I see... wherever they are, the little figurines are matching every move they make precisely. You see, there's the fathers there, huddling and trying to decide what just happened, and who to blame it on. There's son-in-law panicking while Nabiki watches and... oh dear, Akane seems to have decided that it's his fault. And now Kasumi is... summoning up a skeletal servant to bind Akane from behind? Well, that's interesting."

"Aiyah, great-grandmother know how to get Airen out of toy yet?"

"Patience, Xian. Yes. I think there's one more thing I need to take a look at before I make any attempts. To act without full knowledge could be disastrous."

"What great-grandmother need to see?"

"I need... the instruction manual. Would you mind checking that box over there, granddaughter?"

xxx

"RRRRRANMA! I just know that this is YOUR FAULT!"

"Ara... please calm down, Akane-chan. There's no point to attacking your allies. Akane-chan? Oh blast. _Summon Skeletal Minion_!"

"Eep!"

Ranma stopped his frantic dodging to drop to his knees and pant for breath. That was odd... why was he so tired? And what had happened.

Nabiki's eyes, however, had widened as she took in the surroundings, then looked at everyone. They were still... mostly... themselves. But different. Soun was in full samurai regalia, with an old, rusty naginata at his side. Genma was pretty much the same as well, dressed in a dusty white gi, but the cloth covering his baldness was gone, and he seemed slightly less pudgy.

Then there was Akane, who was now slightly greenish and had tiny fangs protruding from her lower jaw, as well as a _vastly_ different choice of clothing. A furry bikini? Not something she would ever willingly wear. And she was currently being held from behind by a dusty skeleton. She was struggling, but even with the extra six inches of height and new muscle tone, she couldn't get enough leverage to break its grip or get at the large oak warhammer she'd dropped.

That was probably a good thing, because Ranma looked very out of breath. The next thing that caught her attention was his clothes... a fancy red hat with a long, white plume in it, and an equally red cape. Beneath that, his pants were nondescript, loose, and partially shredded from the knees down. Added to that was the strange amulet hanging around his neck on a ratty strip of leather, and that his features had shifted slightly... just enough to be noticably different, but no real major shifts like bulging eyes or buckteeth.

She deliberately turned away from Kasumi for a moment to examine the fantasy skyline of forests, towers and such and look for a nearby mirror or puddle of water or something... she noted that there was a knife at her hip. That would have to do. It took some polishing, but she managed to get it to a mirror finish quickly. Well... not as bad as she'd feared. Yeah, her skin was an odd shade of bluey black, and yeah her hear was paper-white, and yeah she was dressed in a suit of leather armor... partially rotten leather, she noticed with distaste... but aside from that, she was pretty much unchanged. And still in shock at being included in this latest bit of Nerima weirdness, or she would have made her displeasure known to all.

She'd put it off long enough. Time to look at Kasumi.

Kasumi was... unnaturally pale, for a start. Then there was what might be tattoos but she was hoping was face paint in intricate designs around her eyes. Her fingernails were long, thick, pointed, black claws. Her pupils were slit and her irises were red, and whenever she breathed out it passed her dark purple lips in a cloud of sulphurous looking yellow vapor. From what she could see inside her mouth, Kasumi's canines had grown and looked sharp, and there was a thin, whiplike tail behind her tipped with a scorpion-like barb. Then there were the horns.

This hadn't even begun to cover Kasumi's clothes... or lack thereof. She was wearing a red cloak with the hood down, a loincloth, and a piece of cloth that was clasped with some sort of strange talisman in the front to cover her chest. Nabiki couldn't help but shiver at the sight. It was like discovering that, mathematically, everyone had been wrong all along and one plus one equaled seven.

It was _wrong_. And what made it worse was that Kasumi's personality hadn't seemed to change a bit, and she didn't notice what was wrong, and she was proclaiming that this _CURSED THING_ was 'the best birthday gift she'd had, EVER', and she was kissing Ranma on the cheek.

Wait, hold on a minute. Nabiki's brain just fried. Give her a minute to reboot.

"Araaa... this is wonderful! We're actually inside the game! Thank you, Ranma-kun!"

"Uh... yeah... don't mention it. I'm hungry for some reason..."

"Ara, there's a mushroom growing out of that tree over there. Maybe... oh dear."

Ranma had started moving at the word mushroom, and scarfed it down. Then he heard it.

"Son-in-law? Son-in-law, can you hear me?"

He looked up. Waaaay up.

"Dear kami... the mushroom was poisonous, and I'm hallucinating a three hundred foot tall old ghoul."

"_Who's_ an old ghoul, Son-in-law? Oh, if I could smack you right now... but in any case, you've gotten yourself quite the fix. My my. Trapped in a board game. Fortunately, the manual is quite comprehensive, or I'd be forced to just watch you all bungle your way through this. And as it appears that the only way to leave the game."

"Is to win. Oh my... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted."

"Nothing to worry about dearie... interesting choices, by the way. Something I should know? Never mind... in any case, I think that you should know that there seems to be a small horde of shrimpy creatures heading your way from the south forest. Wouldn't want you to be caught off guard."

"Oh my... goblins? We have to get ready! _Summon undead minions._"

Another skeleton and a moaning zombie type appeared, and the first skeleton let go of Akane to join them as they shambled off to the south where they would find and hold off the goblins for as long as they could. Akane grabbed her warhammer and hefted it, looking between the forest and Ranma, as though she couldn't decide who she wanted to hit more.

"Akane, you _must not_ strike Son-in-law for any reason in here! If I'm reading this right, he's a mage class and so is physically much weaker than he's supposed to be. An attack that he's used to soaking up without incident here could kill him where you are now!"

"Hah! Bull! I feel just as strong as ever! Watch this!"

Ranma punched a nearby tree, and there was an audible crack. After a moment, in which the tree failed to do much of anything at all, Ranma couldn't take it and started howling in pain as he clutched at his broken fist.

"Oh dear... _Cure_... you really should be more careful, Ranma-kun."

Genma was in a state of shock at the sight, and Ranma was now openly weeping alongside Soun, despite being healed.

"NOOOO! Over a decade of ten hour training days went into that... and now... now... WAAAH! It's all gone!"

"Calm yourself Son-in-law... your fretting is unneccessary. Once the game has ended, you'll be just as strong and skilled in the art as before..."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

A vein popped out on Cologne's forehead and her hand shot down, quickly followed by the rest of her as she lifted Ranma off the ground.

"Gwah! Ah!"

"_LISTEN TO ME, SON-IN-LAW_! As I was saying, you'll return to normal and then some, if what I read is correct. Everything you learn to do in this game, you'll be able to do in real life."

Wide eyes swung to Kasumi, who was cheerfully whistling as she toyed with a ball of crackling, black energy.

"Even..."

"Yes, even the evil deathmagics. Can we move on? You'll also get to keep all the treasure you find... mostly gold-"

This instantly caught the attention of both Nabiki and Genma. Gold... gold was good. Gold was _valuable_.

"-split evenly between you, but also magical artifacts, weapons, and armor. I applaud your ingenuity, Son-in-law. A better solution to the problem of the Neko-ken was never found than that trinket about your neck. Keep hold of that, and once this is done with, you'll never have a problem with kitties again!"

"Uh... thanks?"

"But in any case, with Son-in-laws choice to play 'out of character', as it were, that leaves your primary fighters the two untrustworthy fathers-" Nobody questioned this judgement of character. "-and a half-trained brawler."

"HEY!"

"Come now child, surely you cannot deny it? With all the available people who could teach you to better yourself in the art about, myself included, you choose to go off on your own and break bricks. You don't even realize that the Tendo half of Happosai's school is based on the use of weapons, primarily. Why do you think your father always goes for that naginata of his when he has to fight a serious battle? All he ever trained you in was a few kempo forms when you were young, then left you to flounder for yourself."

Akane was stunned as she put the pieces together, and was faced with undeniable proof that she wasn't as tough as she thought she was.

"But we don't have much time left to speak of such trivialities, the goblins have overwhelmed Kasumi's 'servants' and will be upon you any moment now. You three get to the front line. Your job is to protect the magic users, Kasumi and Ranma. Nabiki... you should try to stay out of the way. From what this sheet reads, you can use crossbows, but don't have any yet, and your knife is more suitable for attacking from behind. But you should be able to... try to fade into the background, focus on not being noticed, on... there you go. Now just don't attack anything, and they shouldn't notice you."

Nabiki could agree with that. Staying out of the line of fire was a very good thing.

"Alright, Kasumi can help by summoning undead to fight for you and healing the injured. Ranma can heal as well, and use attack magic..."

"What magic? I don't know magic! What did I write on that sheet? I can't remember!"

"Stop panicking, son-in-law! Lets see... cure, bolt, and fire. That's all it says. If your in a pinch, though, you could always try using your sword to lop things off, though."

"'Things'?"

"Arms, legs, heads... don't look at me like that, son-in-law. Give me a moment..."

Cologne turned away and there was the sound of her flipping through a book before she turned back.

"'If you don't kill all the goblins that attack, then you can expect them to keep coming in waves, bringing more every time, and eventually killing you and dragging your corpses back to their camp where they will defile and/or eat them depending on their mood, hunger, orientation, and your own attractiveness.'. That's a direct quote from the book, son-in-law, and there are quite a number of other creatures in here far worse than mere goblins. I think it's safe to say that it's wisest not to hold back while within the confines of the game."

Genma grunted and spared a moment to make sure the Yama-sen-ken was still working for him by lopping a branch off a tree... from the other side of the clearing. Yep... still got it. Ranma frowned as _his_ attempt to fire a vaccuum blade didn't work. And he couldn't sink into the Umi-sen-ken. And he couldn't even generate a simple ball of ki. No way to test the Hiryu-shoten-ha, of course, but it was probably a safe bet to say that that wouldn't work either. Looked like for the moment, he was stuck making with the magic.

"No more time, the goblins are here!"

And then it was chaos.

xxx

It was horrifying. Not the bloodiness. Not the fact that Soun and Genma had apparently no compunctions in causing the bloodiness and Akane had been easily convinced to aid in the matter. Not what a goblin's body looked like when it was charred black and crispy, or had been struck with a deadly bolt of lightning. More that, in the battle...

Kasumi had changed. Not physically, but more like as if a shadow of someone else had taken over. A shadow with a laugh eerily reminiscent of Kodachi's, that had no problems with reanimating the corpses of the fallen goblins and setting them on their fellows while she dealt with the ones that got too close with her bare claws.

Now that the battle was over with, she'd returned to regular Kasumi, and casually wondered aloud if she should make a pot of tea before they continued on. Despite the fact that they obviously had no tools to make a fire, or a teapot, and completely ignoring the blood dripping off her hands. So... had she just... fallen a bit too far into her character? Then again, Kasumi had always seemed just a card or two shy of a full deck...

And Ranma had learned about 'Leveling Up' after finally bringing himself to kill about a dozen goblins. He'd gained a new spell, Ice, which flash-froze everything in a small area. He liked it. Of course, once he'd learned how to call lightningbolts, and create flash fires, he'd liked that too. He wanted more. Cologne assured him that there was much more to be had, and a few spells randomly chosen from a list had him slavering to go hunt down more goblins, apparently rationalizing it to himself that since they were in some made up fantasy land, the goblins he killed weren't 'real' and so it was okay to kill them. The only reason he didn't dart off immediately was because, in his excitement, he'd shifted to hybrid form.

Shooting up to eight and a half feet tall and sprouting a whiplike tail and fur over bulging, corded muscles had distracted him. He was strong again! Not anywhere near as strong as he'd been before, but strong enough for the moment! Then his sword had broke when he swung it randomly around and it smacked into a stone pillar. The pillar wasn't holding anything up, it was just... there. A stone pillar, in the middle of nowhere.

So now he was helping Genma and Nabiki loot the bodies, but looking specifically for a new sword. Preferrably a big one. It would be difficult to cart around in his humanoid body, but he could swing it easily as a hybrid. And the idea of an eight plus foot behemoth with sword to match... he was _happy_.

Now he just had to find a suitable sword, that had survived the battle. Oddly, the gold had all come through fine, but most everything else was broken, burned, or warped with magic.

Cologne had left, to the degree that they didn't see her translucent head floating above them, and was presumably reading the manual more thoroughly, rather than just scanning through it for what she was looking for.

In the distance, they could see three towers. Now, the problem was which one to head for first. One to the south, which would take them past more goblins. Lots more goblins. One to the north, and one further to the northwest. No telling what could be in that direction.

"Alright, so the object we're looking for is a jeweled scepter. I suggest that we find it, then _leave_ it for a while, until we've picked up a lot of gold, then come back for it once we're ready to leave."

This was Nabiki's suggestion. Was anyone really surprised? Genma was backing this idea, mainly because piles and piles of gold divided six ways was still a lot of gold for him. He could convince his honorless son to fork over his share after the fact. Little did he know that Nabiki herself was making plans towards both his share, his sons, and her fathers and little sisters. Even with horns, though, she wouldn't feel right ripping off her elder sister. However...

"Now daughter... I think it's best that we find the object and go home _as fast as possible_. No reason to remain here longer than neccessary."

Soun had Akane backing him on the matter. Apparently, she didn't like being here any more than he did.

Then there was Kasumi and Ranma's opinion. Or lack thereof. Kasumi simply didn't have an opinion on the matter, and Ranma was just giggling in glee at what he'd mentally classified as 'new techniques'. Sure, they were magic techniques... but it was called 'Anything Goes' for a reason. The only reason Ranma personally didn't stoop to summoning monsters or using curses and the like was that he was too uneducated to read the dead languages on the scrolls that one typically had to use to activate such things.

This though? This was quick and easy. Basically point out your target, mentally if you were in a hurry, say a word that would come out of your mouth in a different language without you realizing it, and presto, instant flambe'ed/electrocuted/frozen goblin.

That bio spell sounded nifty too, though. As did Holy. But it was white magic? White _attack_ magic? Nice. That could definitely come in handy. Pity he couldn't get it until level fifteen. And then there was Flare, which was apparently the magical equivalent to a small nuke. And Ultima, which would be a _large_ nuke. He wanted them. Not that he would _use_ them... well... not in the 'real' world anyway, but maybe he could test them out here and watch the fireworks. It would also get a lot of problems off his back if they knew that he had that much destructive potential at his fingertips. Probably. Well, maybe not what he had begun to consider 'Saffron-class' problems, but most of them anyway.

Cologne's translucent head appeared over them again for a moment.

"Just letting you know, there's a small herd of what appear to be minotaurs headed your way from the east, armed with battleaxes and warhammers. By the way son-in-law, care to explain why you have 'Seduction' listed as one of your talents?"

Ranma nearly choked on his tongue.

"Wh-What the hell? I didn't... Kasumi?"

"Oh dear... should I not have marked that? But it seemed so apt at the time..."

If gazes could kill... wait, in this game they probably could. If _AKANE'S_ gazes could kill, Ranma would be a smoking husk by now.

"Well apt or not, it seems useful. Like Kasumi, you can bring in extra members for the party. Useful ones or cannon fodder, depending on how you use it, but it has its limits. The enemies have to be opposite your gender, reasonably humanoid, and intelligent enough that they aren't just slavering beasts with a taste for manflesh. That rules out more of these things than you know, but I would suggest trying to convert a 'Greater Gorgon' or an 'Elder Nymph of the Wood' if you get the chance."

By this time Akane was fondling her warhammer menacingly, and Ranma was making frantic warding motions with his hands.

Then the Minotaurs attacked, and the matter was put off in favor of things like 'Duck, son-in-law!' or 'one of you get over there and protect the mages!'

Needless to say, Minotaurs were a lot tougher than goblins, as they swiftly discovered.

xxx

A.N.

Chapter two, and Cologne is acting something like a 'Dungeon Master' now. What can I say? It fits. So now they have prior warning for roving bands of monsters. While Cologne is keeping an eye on them, anyway.

Also, advice for the sword Ranma will end up with? I was thinking something like the Dragonsbane or upgraded Dragon Slayer from that one Dragon Quest game. Granted, those would still be more like a short sword in the freakishly large hybrid form, but I like em.

And the 'Seduction' skill things... who didn't see that coming? That's going to be fun later.


	3. Chapter 3

Towers and Titans

xxx

What had happened at the Tendo Dojo was to be kept the utmost secret. The possibilities of what could happen if the game board was tampered with... or, heaven forbid, one of the miniatures of the people trapped within was _destroyed_... no, it was too horrible to comprehend.

Naturally, by the next day, everyone in Nerima knew about it.

Cologne had had to temporarily close down the Nekohanten to keep people out of the dojo. Even if they just wanted to look, to ooh and ahh at the latest bit of Nerima weirdness, the temptation to meddle would be too much to trust in your average schoolchild. Oddly, Happosai was extremely helpful. She suspected at first that he had some ulterior motive, but it seemed like losing three lovely young girls, 'Ranma-chan', and his "loyal disciples" (Read: pathetic, easily bullied cowards), all in the same stroke was just too much for him to bear.

Everyone else... well, easier to show than tell. Let's rewind to about an hour after the news got around, twenty minutes after Happosai showed up to help guard the board.

xxx

"Mwahaha! The foul Sorceror Saotome has retreated from this world, and left himself vulnerable! I, Tatewaki Kuno, the Rising Star of the Kendo world, and Blue Thunder of Furinkan High, shall strike at this weakness, banishing him from this realm for eternity!"

"You shall do nothing of the sort, _brother-dear_."

"Urk... Paralysis... powder..."

"OHOHOHOHO! Not to worry, Ranma-sama! I shall crush this vile, miniature image of the malodorous Akane Tendo, and free you from her wicked grasp forever! A pity that there is not a similar icon for the loathsome Pigtailed Girl! OHOHOHOHO!"

"Hey, let us in! We just wanna see!"

"Yeah... you shriveled up meanies!"

_Bonk!_

"Alooooooooha Keiki! Seem all da liddle bruddas an' sistas dun be cuttin class to visit de Tendo pad, yeah? Da big Kahuna say, all youse be in big troubles now!"

"Eek! The Principal!"

"My hair!"

"DELINQUENTS! Happo five yen drain!"

"Shampoo just realize! If destroy toy Kitchen Destroyer girl, then gone forever! Obstacle is for killing!"

"I'll gladly help with that, Sugar!"

"SAAOO-TOO-MEEE! How dare you ensnare my Shampoo's heart, even when you are not present! You shall never return!"

"RAAAANNMAA! I'm not sure what's going on here, but this is ALL YOUR FAULT!"

"Furinkan Chem Club, Attack! Begin the volley with our specialty, chemical explosives! Careful with those vials... wait... you idiot, be careful with-"BOOM!

"Midorigame, dinnertime!"

"I... FIGHT... ON! Away from my hair, loathsome creature!"

"Doan be like dat, little Tachi!"

"Oh dear... Ukyo-sama... I don't feel that this is the best course of action. But if you order it..."

"Maybe Akane will notice me... if Saotome is gone? Worth a try... the voodoo never worked, but this might."

xxx

And then, of course, Happosai's willpower had run out with all the pretty ladies there. Hey, nothing said he couldn't guard the dojo _and_ get his kicks in at the same time, right?

After that, things had degenerated even further, as it seemed that everyone Ranma and/or Akane had met even once had started to crawl out of the woodwork, and joined in the assault on the Tendo dojo, for whatever reason.

Then there was the problem within the game itself. While they knew that it was better to have Cologne capable of guarding them from outside forces, without her standing over them, they swiftly came to realize that the dangers from _inside_ the game were just as bad.

"This sucks..."

"Oh, get over it Saotome. It's growing back... slowly, but you can still watch it."

"'Get over it' Nabiki? Let's see _you_ get over something like this!"

"Oh my... does it hurt that much, Ranma-kun? Should I cast a spell?"

"Eh? Oh... no. It's not the pain that's a problem... pain I can deal with... It's that _a goblin cut my arm off with an axe_! It'll grow back, yeah, that's fine and dandy, and I'm really glad I went with a lycanthropic race, or else this might have been permament, good thing Goblins can't afford silver, but _DAMN_! My arm was _there_ and now it's _gone_ and those little _bastards ATE IT_! There's just a touch of mental trauma involved with all this."

"Oh? Don't make me laugh, vermin. You've not enough mental faculties to traumatize."

"... THAT'S IT! I'm gonna cut off your godsdamned arms, _Drow_! Let's see you laugh while you're bleeding to death, bitch!"

"_CALM_!"

White feathers began drifting down from the sky as all nearby parties felt their hostile intentions towards each other just sort of... fade away. Akane took it badly, despite not being involved in anything as yet, as she went directly from standing to flat on her face and snoring. Apparently, the only way the spell had found to calm her down was to make her go to sleep.

"Kasumi... what just... happened?"

"Oh dear... well, I'm not sure... but it seems that when you two began to get too stressed, you began regressing into your character."

Ranma blinked, then his eyes widened as he replayed the last few minutes. He'd threatened to cut off Nabiki's arms! How stupid! Now he'd never be out of debt for the rest of his life!

Meanwhile, Nabiki was having similar thoughts, mainly on how dumb it was to not only antagonize, but enrage, a guy with a big sword and flashy, destructive magic. No matter who it was. That was just stupid, and she prided herself on her intelligence.

"Wait... is this like what happens when Kasumi starts laughing and slaughtering things?"

"Hmm...? I'm afraid I don't understand, Nabiki-chan. When I what? Oh my... I seem to have caked mud on my hands for some reason... when did that happen?"

Sweatdrops abounded as everyone awake did their best to avoid mentioning that the 'mud' was actually thick, dried, layers of brown goblin blood.

"So... is that... a 'maybe'?"

Nabiki raised her hand.

"Okay, I'm changing my vote. If this thing is messing with our heads, we need to get out now, or at least as soon as possible."

"But... but... _special techniques_!"

"Are you really _that_ willing to give up your sanity for the sake of flashy techniques?"

Silence fell and someone... surely it hadn't been Kasumi? No... coughed into their hand and muttered 'Neko-Ken' just loud enough that everyone could hear it.

"Right, stupid question. In any case, if you _must_, then you can come back in after we leave. Maybe you can rope those two idiots that hang out around you in school into joining you... what were their names? Heero and Pansuke?"

"Hiroshi and Daisuke."

"Whatever."

Akane shrieked, interrupting the conversation as she spun and slammed her new warhammer into the skull of a goblin that had been sneaking up on them.

"Perhaps we should keep moving. Right Tendo?"

"Indeed, Saotome. These creatures just don't seem to stop coming."

"Almost like there are infinite amounts of them appearing just out of our line of sight and tracking us down, that exist for no other purpose but to die to make us stronger?"

"Quite so Nabiki-chan... and well put."

Apparently, Soun hasn't quite gotten the concept of 'Sarcasm' yet.

"Well I don't know about you all, but I'm getting tired of being jumped by these little creeps. Let's turn this around and hunt down their... village or... whatever. See how _they_ like being attacked out of nowhere!"

"That's... a... surprisingly good idea. Logically, destroying wherever these goblins are spawning from should, at the least, cut down on how many there are attacking us, and make it easier for us to get to the first tower."

"Yeah! This is great! Let's see... should I burn down their houses? No, hit them with lightning from above! They won't expect it! Or maybe..."

"Ranma? Shut up. You'll get your chance to work with the magic, but first we have to find out _where_ the goblin base is."

"Oh that won't be a problem."

His sword came out of his sheath as he spun around to block another goblins knife as it leapt for his throat from behind.

"Don't kill it! It's what we need! Grab it pops!"

Genma dived on command, grabbing it from behind as it struggled in an attempt to get loose, or at the least stab _someone_ before it died. Ranma snorted as he sheathed his sword, taking the opportunity to check how much of his arm was left to regrow. Well, he had an elbow again... that was nice. Maybe an hour more before he was back to full? It would be nice to have two hands again... actually, he was glad that he hadn't had such a regeneration factor before, imagining what stupidities pops could get into on the training trip if he thought that his son couldn't die. Like a pit full of _big_ cats. He shook his head to banish the image.

"Anything Goes interrogation technique: Fire, Ice, Illusion combo! Demon Skull!"

Ranma's head seemed to ignite with a cold blue fire, burning away his flesh until only bone was left above the shoulders. The 'Minor Illusion' spell was most prevalent in this, as the flames were real, but using both a fire and ice spell at the same time cancelled most of the power out of both, and they only tickled a little bit.

_**"You will tell me what I want to know!"**_

The goblin squealed in fright, and began babbling broken, barely understandable sentences right alongside various forms of gibberish. Eventually, Ranma managed to piece it all together and nodded. Genma loosed his grip and stepped back as the sword came out again, neatly decapitating the little fiend. Suffice to say, Ranma _really_ didn't like goblins by this point. Nobody blamed him.

_**"To the goblin village!"**_

Nobody pointed out that he'd forgotten to drop the 'Demon Skull' technique.

xxx

"Okay, I'm going to guess that the biggest mud and stick hut in the middle is the main target. The one that a goblin walks out of every thirty seconds, but nobody actually enters."

"Dunno about that, Nabiki. I kinda wanna go let the people out of those cages first."

"If you stifled your hero-complex for a moment, Saotome, you'd realize that if we freed the captives first, it would leave us having to fight _more_ goblins overall, and maybe being overrun. Get rid of the spawning-hut first, and then we have a definite number of goblins to take out, rather than a steadily increasing one."

"You gotta point, but if we attack the hut, then the goblins _over there_ might kill the captives before we can get them loose, and I'm pretty sure that they would."

"Oh my... but there's an obvious solution. Half of us attack the hut, and half of us release the prisoners. That way, you both win."

Everyone was stunned silent at the simple and logical expedient. Then mutterings began about who would attack where. In the end it was decided that Ranma, Soun, and Kasumi would free the prisoners, while Nabiki, Akane, and Genma would topple the spawning hut. They also planned, much to Akane's iration, as she just wanted to rush in and smash skulls until the goblins were all dead. The teams would sneak around the outside of the village until they reached the shortest point between the edge an their target.

As Nabiki's team would reach their spot first, they would wait there until Ranma's team started the attack, drawing the goblin's attention to the heroes attempting to free their prisoners. Then they would attack and topple the hut and work in a pincer maneuver to catch the rest of the goblins from behind.

Now if they could just convince Akane to stop fidgeting and wait patiently until it was time to attack. Then again, patience had never been her strong point... which was why Genma was currently sitting on her, with a cloth rag stuck in her mouth to keep her from screaming at them and giving them away ahead of time.

xxx

Tarre was an infant Black Dragon. A race that was typically the most powerful, evil things around. As was the norm, her clutch of eggs had been abandoned in the wilderness, and when she battled her way out of the shell, she was starving. How fortunate for her that there were three other eggs just sitting there.

Unlike the 'Good' varieties of Dragons, who only lay one egg at a time, and then care for it and the hatchling until it grew enough to leave the nest, the 'Evil' breeds would still only end up with one hatchling per clutch, but through much different means.

After finishing off the other three eggs and resting, Tarre had decided that she was the most powerful thing around. For a short time, this was true, but not in a way she would have understood. The larger and more dangerous beings, smelling dragon and instantly equating it to gargantuan, flying, _hungry_ beings, instantly fled the area, not knowing that it was just a hatchling dragon. Similarly, the smaller and weaker creatures, such as rabbits, small deer, and other forest creatures didn't bother to do anything, also connecting the 'dragon' smell to a really huge animal who, and this is the important part, _wouldn't bother them in any way_. After all, how many rabbits would it take to fill up a grown dragon? Too many! It would be a complete waste of time and effort on the dragons part, and so, creatures that were small enough would typically be ignored.

But only by fully-grown dragons. Hatchlings were much smaller, and filled up a lot easier. Typically, the cute little furry animals didn't realize this until they'd become entrees. All this, naturally, increased Tarre's feelings of superiority.

Then the damn goblins had built a village just past the edge of what she considered her territory. She'd ignored it. After all, the goblins were the 'weakest' of the 'evil' races. Your average housewife with a frying pan could beat a goblin to death. She had nothing to worry about from goblins, and when one or two at a time would enter and explore her territory, they were easily dealt with. Not exactly the most tasty things around either, but waste not want not.

And then reality set in as she discovered that, powerful dragon or not, she was still a hatchling, and even a _fully-grown_ dragon had to sleep sometime. And it just so happened that the goblins she'd eaten had been sacrifices to keep her appeased while the goblins used some of the treasure they'd stolen and hoarded away to hire an evil wizard to help in capturing her.

That this wizard, coincidentally, had gone through many bad experiences while in the service of a Black Dragon, leading him to putting more effort into his work than he normally would for far less pay then he would typically demand, was simply poor fortune on her part. Had she been fully grown, she would have been resistant enough to magic that she could wake before the wizard was finished and either kill him or escape. Had the wizard not had such bad experiences with Black Dragons, prompting the need for some form of vengeance, no matter how small or petty, he would not have been so thorough in his sorceries. And had the goblins set up their village less than a mile in another direction, placing them within her territory and giving her a reason to attack their village, she might well have been able to destroy all of the little monsters, even as small and relatively weak as she was.

So really, it was a long string of bad luck and coincidences that led to her being in this cage, as well as the collar that was keeping her in her current form. Not that the other occupants of the cage would have cared much for being locked up with a _real_ young Drow either, but they were dimly aware of what she really was, and even if it was only marginally better, this was still better. Even though Drow and Black Dragons both had reputations that weren't at all pleasant, a Drow couldn't gnaw them in half in her sleep if she got hungry. That was a definite plus, as the goblins didn't exactly make a point out of feeding them regularly.

Actually, that was the point. Most of them weren't there to be _fed_, they had been captured to be _food_. A concept that was made pointedly clear with the fact that the cages were only a few short feet away from the firepit that the goblins used to 'cook' their food. Although given that they just threw the victim in and waited for them to stop screaming before pulling them out, maybe 'cook' wasn't the best word for it.

Some of them had been adventurers themselves, and as such were actually kinder to the little Drow-dragon, knowing that favors given a creature when young and weak would result in debts owed when the being grew up to be strong and powerful, regardless of the beings racial alignment. Some famous Quests had only been able to be resolved because a dragon, or a giant, or a demon had gotten involved to repay a debt owed to one of the adventurer's families for generations. There was also the lesser known fact, spread out among certain circles of adventurers, that a being influenced in its youth could end up shifting its alignment against the rest of its race. Take those Drow rebels, for example!

The rest were peasants and farmers and merchants that only recalled the tales of fearsome hungry dragons descending on herds of bulls, setting fields of crops aflame, and attacking merchant caravans, killing all the people, and taking the valuables to add to their hoards. These made no niceties about letting the young dragon know that, if they were free of their bonds, and had weapons handy, they would gladly free Tarre of the fleshy bonds tying her to the mortal coil.

All of this added to the frankly infantile dragon's mental state of growth led to some subconscious decisions on her part. Some of which was truly odd.

1. She didn't like goblins. At all. In fact she hated them, and wanted to painfully annihilate every last vestige of their loathsome race.

Well that wasn't too odd... nobody _really_ liked goblins, after all. Even most goblins didn't like goblins. That would usually result in them cracking and going either nuts or suicidal. Mostly suicidal, if the rate at which they rushed to their deaths at adventurer's blades was any indication.

2. She didn't like farmers, or merchants, or other peasants.

Once again, this wasn't exactly an odd conclusion to come to. She'd been locked up with them threatening to kill her for weeks now, and so in her mind, they were almost as bad as the damn goblins.

3. She _did_ like heroic adventurers, or at least the ones with more than half a brain.

Now this _was_ an odd conclusion for her to come to... after all, she was a dragon, and for a dragon 'adventurer' tended to equate to 'thief after my hoard!'. Also, her species as a whole was inclined towards darkness, what the common folk misconstrued as 'Evil', and so were typically at odds with most adventurers as they tended towards being inclined towards the light, misconstrued as automatically 'Good'. That made the subconscious decision doubly odd in her case.

4. Her stomach was apparently a great deal smaller in this form.

This was a much smaller realization, but a useful and practical one as well. Dragons _could_ learn how to shapeshift between their natural form and a humanoid one. That was what most of the magic of the collar did, force her into a humanoid form, then prevent her from shifting back into the more deadly draconic form. This was planting some novel (for a dragon, anyway) ideas in Tarre's mind. Like hunting her food down, and then _transforming_ before she ate it. That had lead to the next, and final, realization.

5. Surprisingly, most foods tasted a whole lot better cooked than they did raw. Barring certain vegetables and some fish, anyway.

That had lead to her most recent conscious decision. Assuming that she managed to get out of this horrible little village alive, she was going to find some reasonably talented humanoid and have him or her teach her how to cook.

By now it should be plainly obvious to all that Tarre is no longer just your average dragon, personality wise. In fact, most Black Dragons would probably consider her warped, or something like a defect by this point. Considering what they _do_ to defects, it's probably best that most of their species never come into contact with one another except to mate and on the rare occasion that one allows a sibling to live, usually crippled in some way, as a servant to them. Remember, _Evil_. It may be a misnomer, but it was a well reasoned out one.

Which was why, when there were sudden screams as goblins began to die, Tarre was not making plans to get on the good side of this new group of adventurers and stab them in the back at the most convenient opportunity. Rather, she was idly wondering if any of them knew how to cook.

xxx

A.N.

First demonstration of lycanthropic regeneration, that'll come in handy. Until the wrecking crew picks up on its weaknesses, anyway.

And if anyone's spent much time in the Anime Addventure, chances are they'll recognize Tarre. I don't know who created her character originally, but she just fits so perfectly into this scenario, don't you think? Chances are that if I come across another character that interests me, I'll slip them in rather than take the effort to make up a new character from whole cloth, as it were. But poor Tarre-chan... it's always those damn goblins, isn't it?


	4. Chapter 4

Okay, before we begin, a quick runthrough on where Tarre can be found. Apparently her original incarnation was in the 'New gods' thread, and I've found her in a couple other places as well, but most notably in the 'Magic Prince Ranma' thread. Can't remember the others offhand, though.

xxx

Towers and Titans

xxx

There had been something of a compromise in Nerima. The flat out assault on the dojo had trickled to a stop, with Cologne and Happosai allowing a couple people in at a time to look, not touch.

Of course there was a definite list of people who were not to be allowed in, for any reason. Right at the top of the list were Ranma's fiancees, including Cologne's own great-granddaughter, and Ranma's rivals. Everyone else was being handled on a case by case basis.

Konatsu was allowed in to look, on the understanding that he was not to try anything funny. Not even if Ukyo ordered it. He was watched closely.

Herb, after some deliberation and an explanation as to just why he was back in Nerima in the first place, was allowed in and invited to help guard the board. So long as nobody splashed him and asked to 'see his boobies', he was actually a very patient part-human. His rematch with Saotome could wait.

Lime and Mint were _not_ allowed in the dojo, by virtue of their extreme lack of intelligence leading to the severe chance that they would tamper with something they shouldn't have. Herb instantly agreed with that point of view, and in fact supported it so much after he noted that their gazes were switching between nearby buckets and the koi pond that he demanded they not only not enter the dojo, but that they wait in the entryway of the Tendo compound for him.

Not surprisingly, the list of those allowed entry to the dojo was _far_ shorter than the list of those not allowed in, by any means. Not that it stopped Kuno. He just kept trying, using more and more outlandish means each time after it became obvious that they weren't going to just let him in like he felt they should, and for some reason his battles with these obviously fiendish guardians of the sorceror Saotome ended with him suddenly awakening a good distance away and wondering why he had chosen to take a nap in such an odd place.

This most recent time, he had Sasuke wheel out the siege equipment. The catapult hadn't actually been used for well over a century, but would be more than effective enough, aimed properly, to get him into the dojo. And Kuno was tough, if not strong or particularly smart. Smashing through the roof, and a rafter or two, at worst, was no particular trouble, given the sort of punishment he was now used to going through. He readied his bokken as his arc began to descend, right on target.

Below, another Kuno was proving her stubbornness, as she had somehow managed to slip through the door, but could go no farther, as she was blocked on the right and left by shriveled septugenarians and in the front by a young man who was _almost_ as attractive as her Ranma-sama. Although the long, pink hair really didn't do it for her.

Then her incompetent elder brother slammed through the ceiling, and the three spun around, but not in time to stop what happened next, as the bokken swung down.

The board itself surged upwards, opening a crack in its surface that turned into a mouth, filled with sharp, pointy teeth, and a long red tongue. Tatewaki attempted to backpedal, but as he was falling through the air and there was nothing for him to grab hold of, he didn't even manage to slightly slow his descent into that gaping maw. It snapped shut around him and there was a gulping sound, followed by the tongue poking out to dab at the board's 'lips' before it settled back down into a flat and quescient state, and a deep ominous voice began echoing through the room.

**"Punished now be the one, who makes attempt with the game to interfere. The game continue."**

A piece of paper materialized in the air with a fanfare of sparks and drifted slowly to the ground as a new character token appeared on the starting square.

"... You know, now that I stop to consider, perhaps this is not the best use of the noble Black Rose's valuable time. And yet, have I not already informed all of my instructors that I shall not be attending class this day? How then, shall this valuable free time be spent?"

Cologne ignored the ramblings of the wide-eyed and pale girl as she took a look at the character sheet for the new player. Hm. Oh dear. It looked like the boy was finally a samurai at least, but without armor, and armed only with his stick. Pure human, so no special bonuses, but... could that really? She shook her head and looked back at the sheet. His Intelligence and Wisdom scores were of the chart... and not in a good way. She hadn't known it was possible to score negatives. The rest of his ratings were, at best, half of average except for his Endurance rating. That, surprisingly, was off the charts in the good way.

Well, on the positive side, so long as he wasn't _completely_ overwhelmed, that endurance score should keep him alive through everything the game could throw at him. It wouldn't be _at all_ pleasant, but he would definitely survive it. The phrases 'meat shield', 'distraction', and 'bait' spring to mind, and that was probably only if the boy was fortunate enough to run across the rest of the players in this little game. And that rich girl was still babbling, obviously she hadn't been as inured to life in Nerima as everyone thought. Or maybe she'd just realized that if the game had eaten her brother for trying to meddle with it, it would have no qualms about doing the same to her. She sighed and backed away from the board as she flipped the sheet to Happosai, who looked interested in it.

She was an Amazon Matriarch. Regardless of her personal feelings on the matter, it went against her moral code to just stand back and leave _any_ woman in such distress, no matter who she was. So she forced her face into a reasonable approximation of what she _thought_ was a comforting smile (but was actually quite horrifying to behold), and did her best to comfort the girl, slowly switching the conversation to relatively safe waters. Ranma.

Actually, given how smitten the girl was with him, it was surprising just how little she knew about him. That could be rectified easily though. Hmmm... and they _did_ still have a crate of instant Jusenkyo powder, if she required a more in-depth explanation. Shampoo had made a wrong order, and gotten a much larger crate than she was expecting, as she'd only needed the 'drowned man spring' packets. The rest were sitting quietly in the basement of the Nekohanten, gathering dust. No problem, she'd just have Herb's idiot henches drag it over.

xxx

Meanwhile, Kuno was being beaten severely by a Rabid Rabbit, one of the monsters that typically wouldn't show itself to even the most basic adventurers. For some reason, though, it had seen Kuno and gotten a good feeling about its chances of victory.

"I... FIGHT... ON!"

And it was right. If Kuno had managed to actually _hit_ it with his stick, it would have gone down in one blow, but he kept missing. With Kuno downed, the rabbit paused to consider what to do next. It had never beaten anything into unconsciousness before, and so it shrugged mentally and decided to do what came naturally in this matter... hopping up to next to the overwhelmed Kuno's head and lifting its hind leg.

Have to let him know he's been beaten, after all.

xxx

The man had probably once been imposing. The tattered rags he was wearing had once been made of very expensive cloth, he carried himself with an air of one used to riches, compounded by the lines of pink skin on his fingers contrasting greatly against his tan where he had likely once worn guady, expensive jewelry. While the others in the cage had been emaciated and guant to some degree or another, he was still rather plump, hinting that he had once boasted truly obscene weight, something only the richest of merchants could afford.

He had also been talking for the past fifteen minutes.

"... not that I do not appreciate your releasing my inestimable self from those awful cages, but I must ask, noble warriors, why you have not yet ended the life of that... _creature_ that I was forced to share my meals with. You..."

Ranma had gotten tired of it after the first thirty seconds when he realized that the guy was trying to convince them to murder what, to him, looked like a little kid. Of course, now that he knew that he had to be careful what he did, in case of it permamently affecting his mind, he needed some quiet advice on how to handle this situation from Kasumi.

"Oh dear... well, I suppose the 'bad' way to do it would be to just kill him so that he stops talking."

"I'm seriously considering that. And the 'good' way?"

"That would be... talking to him and trying to convince him to see other peoples points of view on the subject, I guess."

"And that would take how long? Would it garner me any extra experience?"

"It would probably take hours of debate. Likely more. And... no."

"But killing him would?"

"Well... a little bit, yes..."

"Evil it is, then. Excuse me... yes, you, the fat man who doesn't seem capable of keeping his mouth shut. In essence, you want me to kill that girl because she irritates you, right?"

The rest of the captives stood back and watched in fascination as the merchant-prince type turned purple and started sputtering but eventually admitting that, yes, that was what he wanted, oversimplified a bit. Then...

**THRUST-OF-DOOM!**

... he looked down to where Ranma's sword was now buried to the hilt in the center of his chest. Wow... fat merchant-princes pulled off the 'shocked and betrayed' look so _well_.

"Oh, don't be like that. It's nothing personal... you just irritated me, that's all. And now I'm quite sure that you won't ever make that particular mistake again."

Ranma gently tugged his sword out, wiped it on the idiot's clothes, and had it sheathed before his corpse even began to slump to the ground. All the prisoners, with a noticable exception of Tarre, took one large step away from their 'savior'.

"Yo, Saotome... we're done looting the... wait a minute, wasn't that guy, you know, alive ten minutes ago?"

"Missed a goblin and it got him before I could get to it." Ranma said with a perfectly straight face.

Now normally, Nabiki could tell when Ranma was blowing smoke out of his ass. He was just frankly raised in such a way that he was a horrible liar, and in all his time in Nerima, had never learned how. He would stutter, flinch, his eyes would dart all over the place, and he would break out in a cold sweat every time he tried to tell a lie. It was obvious even to your average brain-dead mollusc when he was lying.

So Ranma was surprised, even if he didn't show it, when Nabiki just nodded and swallowed his load of horseshit. Then his eyes widened as he recalled another facet of being the Red Jack-Of-All-Trades. He had started with a point of 'Speechcraft'. That meant... he could lie now! Believably! His mind was boggling... he could hide money from not only Nabiki, but his own pops as well! He could make believable threats that he had no intention of carrying out! He could... he could _bluff at poker_! Dear god... he could even go on a training trip to get away from it all for a couple of weeks and _lie about where he was going_. This... this was...

This was _THE BEST THING THAT HAD HAPPENED TO HIM, EVER_!

Not that the card game thing would probably come in handy anytime soon, as it would probably give the whole game away if he started playing well when he'd sucked so horribly all his life, but the other things could be useful. Especially if he could manage to restrain his impulses and be subtle about it, leaving it at things like a note saying he would go one place, but really go someplace else with a similar name. That could be passed off as an honest mistake, and nobody would be the wiser. Yes! He would...

Blink and look down as someone started tugging at his arm to get his attention, locking eyes with the 'kid' he'd only dimly noted before now.

"Will you be my daddy?"

The question registered, and all his mental faculties shut completely down as he blacked out, muscles and bones locking him into a statue.

xxx

Rewinding to just a couple of minutes ago, Tarre nodded as the male adventurer skewered the man she mentally referred to as 'fat idiot'. It was only correct and reasonable that he be judged the way he judged others. And to be frank, he _was_ irritating. His voice was like nails grinding at a chalkboard, and everything he said came out whiny and annoying.

If she'd had a grip on something sharp and pointy, and had to listen to him drone on and on for so long, she would have stabbed him herself.

And... there was something odd about him. Something she liked.

Now in order to understand that last bit, you have to understand that the 'Seduction' thing had two modes, but neither of them was 'off'. There was 'unfocused', which just made Ranma attractive to all females in the vicinity, to random degrees depending on how attractive they would have found him normally, and 'focused', when he brought the entire aura, for lack of a better word, to bear on a single female. But it was never off.

Of course, Tarre was still barely a hatchling. Nowhere near old enough for the aura of Seduction to have the normal effect on her. So the magic involved compromised in an unexpected manner.

Tarre nodded to herself. Humanoids would be raised from youth by an elder humanoid. That sounded interesting. She decided that she would try it. And the available options were... an overweight monk, a samurai weeping in the background about something, and the interesting one. The choice was obvious, although for some reason choosing a _mother_ instead simply never occured to her. And so, she tugged at his hand and when he looked down, she popped the question.

"Will you be my daddy?"

Nabiki blinked, then fell over laughing.

xxx

Somewhere in Tokyo, at this exact moment, Nodoka snapped to full attention as her head swung to face the Tendo Dojo. For some reason, her grandbaby sense was tingling, but in a much different manner than normal.

xxx

Nabiki was still laughing when Ranma came to, prompting him to wonder what had brought about her hilarity. Then he panicked as he suddenly remembered.

"Daddy's awake!"

"Now son, if you _must_ adopt a daughter, then I must insist that you allow your fiancee to help care for her."

"Quite right, Tendo, and in doing so she can prove her motherly instincts and just why she's the best choice for a wife!"

Mount Akane blew her top, only barely keeping herself from responding physically as she reached for her water canteen.

"Oh? I don't see why I should bother. After all... _he can be the brat's father _AND_ mother, himself_!"

Ranma had been expecting the arc of water for quite some time. After all, this was the longest he'd spent without his curse activating since... well, he couldn't remember. And so the inquisitive hatchling watched as Ranma shrank a few inches, his hair changed color, and she sprouted a big weight on her chest.

Naturally Tarre, being a dragon, understood that magic was involved in this. And some part of her hind-brain listened to the uninteresting half-orc girl's shriek and took it perfectly seriously. And... well, as she was still extremely young for her kind, this was a rather predictable conclusion to draw.

"Daddy is daddy _and_ mommy? Mommy is the best!"

Nabiki nearly choked to death on her own tonsils at that remark, as her laughter redoubled. Tarre frowned mentally though, even as she tackle/hugged Ranma. Surely there had been a better way to put that? Stupid humanoid languages. If she was in her draconic form, then she could just use telepathy, bypassing the problem of humanoid languages entirely.

Ranma was paralyzed and unconscious again, so things swiftly degenerated from there. By the time he woke up again, they would be sitting outside the tower they were heading for. Not inside though...

Mainly because the tower had no door, and all attempts to 'make' one had failed spectacularly.

xxx

Cologne admired manners and etiquette. Typically, for that reason, she enjoyed the company of the 'upper-class'. Kodachi, however...

Well, it was noble protocol to deal with something you do not want to adress by simply feigning not to see it. That might be part of the problem with the Kuno family... they were so practiced in not seeing things, that they did it automatically.

That had proven to be problematic, especially as Kodachi had seen both 'Ranma-sama', and 'the pigtailed wench', but had never actually seen one in the transition of turning into the other. Herb wasn't happy about being the first demonstration of the curse, but had accepted it.

While demonstrating the curse, Cologne had explained exactly how it worked and what it was and, before Kodachi could mentally put her own spin on things to make it fit her worldview, the crate of instant curses had been lugged in and she started demonstrating them, pointing out how the dog splashed with drowned girl water would still act like a dog, proving that there were no mental effects from the spring. She continued the impromptu education upon Jusenkyo's magic by turning Kodachi herself into a multitude of forms, including, but not limited to dog, cat, rat, alligator, buffalo, pygmy mammoth, and heron.

Kodachi had needed some time to settle down afterwards, and to stop screaming, but was forced to admit that while her body had changed her mind had not, and further forced to admit that while she did not think it _likely_ it was_ possible_ that her love bore the same curse that the pink-haired foreigner had displayed.

Now she was just sitting in a corner, apparently mulling things over as she put lots of little clues together, or possibly trying to convince herself that it had all been a hallucination. Every so often she would blink, or twitch oddly.

An eye was kept on her by the others in the dojo, in the same manner that an eye would be kept on a stick of dynamite with an unlit fuse. Not _currently_ dangerous, but you wanted to make sure that the fuse hadn't somehow gotten lit while you didn't notice. After all, the Kuno family had been famous for their unpredictability and instability for centuries. It was entirely possible that she would leap to unexpected conclusions, or react to the news she had been force-fed in an... unpleasant manner.

xxx

"Okay, yeah, this is definitely a problem. No door to the tower that we need to raid." Ranma leaned back and squinted as he looked at the top of the tower. "That little lump there _might_ be a rope ladder, or something of the like, but the chances of throwing a rock and knocking it down... yeah, that's not happening. Maybe if we had a catapult one of us could be launched to the top but... I'm noticing a distinct lack of siege equipment. That just leaves one way in."

"And just why do you think you are an expert on this sort of thing, Saotome?"

Ranma frowned at Nabiki's cynicism and complete and total lack of faith in him, even as Genma attempted to look innocent.

"Pops had me help rob a few places during the training trip, before I was old enough to know it was a bad idea. Some of those places were hard to just get to, and just as hard to get into. But it's like riding a bike, you don't forget. If you can't get in from the ground, there are no windows, and you can't get in from above... then the only remaining way is from below. We should spread out and look for a cave opening nearby."

Genma nodded, pleased that his son had remembered that part of his training, Tarre nodded because of a seed of what was swiftly becoming hero-worship of 'Daddy', and everyone else swiftly came to the conclusion that, yes, that did sound like something Genma would do and so it was quite possible that Ranma was right. Of course, his idea of splitting up to find the possible cave faster was instantly seen as stupid. By this time they could each deal with a group of anywhere between ten and fifteen goblins all on their own without trouble, but more than that would be a problem, and there were obviously more dangerous creatures out there. No, they would be looking for this cave mouth as a group.

And by the time they found it, the sun hanging over them had begun to set.

xxx

A.N.

Not much to say here. I considered a lot of things with Kuno, really. I could have made him into a weak monster, I could have made him a barmaid, I could have done any number of things. I like this though. His character has been set up so it's mainly flaws and penalties, any items he stumbles across will be either worthless or cursed, and he'll avoid the problem of getting more powerful as he levels up simply by the expedient of being so pathetic and wimpy that he won't be able to get the _opportunity_ to level up. After all, to get exp., you have to actually _beat_ the monsters.

He might _technically_ be classified as 'Samurai', but it might as well be 'walking punching bag'. In my opinion, Kuno has always been a comic relief type character, and now it's just going to be worse. Oh, he'll survive it... can't torture the dead... but this game isn't going to be fun for him at all.


	5. Chapter 5

Towers and Titans

xxx

Cologne blinked as the board shuddered and began swelling upwards, until it was a cube rather than a flat board. That everything beneath the surface level of the board was translucent to one degree or another, allowing a termite-like warren of tunnels and chambers extending almost a full mile beneath the ground to be shown was just par for the course.

The problem was that the tangled web of tunnels was confusing as all hell to look at from the outside, and there was no way to just look at one small part without looking at everything behind it as well. Looking at it from different angles helped somewhat, but it was still enough to give the casual observer a migraine. From this angle, they could be in any one of a dozen places. From _that_ angle, it was cut down to only three or four. And then was the fact that they wouldn't stop moving, making it even _harder_ to pick out exactly where they were...

And that little trick of partially projecting herself into the game _required_ that she know exactly where they were. If she didn't, she would end up overshooting, or looking at the wrong place, or more recently, given the underground setting, have dirt pressed up to her eyeballs so she couldn't see anything. Not at all amusing. Granted, she could move about freely through the dirt, being insubstantial... only partially there... but the maze of warrens was just as confusing from the inside as from the outside. Taking a deep breath, she projected herself into the game again... and once again overshot by a couple hundred feet, this time into a large chamber directly below them.

Her blood ran cold as she looked at what was happening there, and she forced herself out of the game, grabbed Ranma's paper and scribbled something on the bottom. No time to be subtle about this, as she projected herself into the game again, this time hitting her mark perfectly and landing herself directly in the middle of the, now thoroughly-lost, group's campsite.

xxx

"'Go in from beneath!' you said. 'It's like riding a bike... you never forget.' you said. 'Just follow the tunnel and we'll be there in no time' you said. You got us lost underground, Saotome."

Genma coughed.

"Well... technically this isn't the boy's fault, and you shouldn't be so hard on him. All the places we 'visited' that were set up like this... they just had a simple tunnel, leading to and from the basement. No turn offs, no complicated cavern systems like this, no underground rivers or sudden cave-ins... no monstrous creatures from the depths..."

Everyone shuddered unanimously in remembrance of the fish-monkey-thing with lobster claws they'd run into only minutes after enterring the cave.

"So really, it's not his fault at all. Of course, there were never enough luminescent molds to see by in those tunnels either, and if the roof fell we would have starved to death rather than having underground fish and mushrooms available like we do here..."

"Breakfast is ready, everyone. No miso soup available, I'm afraid, but these boiled mushroom juices are a pleasant substitute."

"Tarre helped, daddy! Did Tarre do good?"

Ranma paused in the rush to food, slightly confused as to what was expected of him. Then he smiled and ruffled her hair. Hell if he knew, so he'd just wing it.

"'Course you did. After all, you're _my_ daughter."

The beaming smile hinted that he'd managed to say the best possible thing. And then the meal began, fish and mushroom soup, with the mushrooms sliced and fried as a side. They were very good-

"Son-in-law!"

Ranma coughed as he sprayed a mouthful of hot soup over the translucent specter.

"Dammit old ghoul, you gonna show up _every_ time I eat a mushroom?"

"If I could smack you, I would son-in-law. No time though! I've taken the liberty of temporarily adding the Breaking Point to your list of techniques. The magic won't hold for long, you must break through the floor, now!"

"But I'm eating!"

"_**NOW**_, Son-in-law!"

Ranma shrugged, gulping down the rest of his soup, and thrust a finger downwards. Eyes widened, and Genma dived to grab hold of the pot of soup at the same time that Soun rescued the stone platter of fish. Then the ground erupted and they were falling.

Those two were the least scathed by the fall... after all, they had experience with this sort of thing, while training with the master. Sit down to eat a meal, only to discover that the whole setup was on top of a hidden catapult ready to launch them off a nearby cliff... or on top of a deep pit trap that wouldn't hold both their weight, with broken glass and tacks at the bottom... old news. The tricky part was saving the better portion of the meal as they fell. Fortunately, they only lost a couple of fish that went beyond Soun's arm reach and a little bit of the mushroom soup. The fried mushrooms had all already been eaten, so they allowed the stone they'd been sitting on to spiral away.

"Uuun... good thing I landed on something soft. Oh, hello Akane."

"Gerrof me 'Biki."

"I wonder how many of the bowls survived, Tendo?"

"Not to worry, there was a whole stack of them left sitting right... oh dear. It looks like they're still up there, Saotome."

"Ah, well, we can collect them later."

"Oh dear. Ranma-kun? Did you forget to use a 'Feather Fall' spell? Not to worry, I kept hold of your daughter."

"Thnx Kazmi... gimme minnit..." Ranma's spine and joints audibly crackled as he slowly sat up. "Mebbe that wasn't th' best idea I ever had... stupid old ghoul."

"My apologies, son-in-law, but I felt it important that you interrupt this ritual before it could continue any further."

"Ritual? What ritual?"

He turned around and took a look behind him where, in fact, there _was_ a ritual, paused at the height of things, apparently, with two girls tied to an altar and a wrinkled old Drow holding a knife in her hand.

"Ohhh... _THAT_ ritual. Yeah, I can kinda see your point there."

xxx

The matron was most displeased. It had taken years of effort and a great deal of gold to track down such perfect sacrifices. Twin moon elves. Moon elves themselves were a rarity, as they could be born to any species of elf that existed, with the provision that they be both concieved and birthed under the light of the full moon. Such a rarity, doubled with the rarity of any elf of any sort being fertile enough to birth twins?

They would be an invaluable sacrifice to the Spider Queen, guaranteeing her favor for the next millenia, and possibly longer!

Naturally, the preparation for such an important sacrifice had taken months. The choice of which would be the best location, which date would be the most pleasing in the Mistress of Webs' eyes, and exactly how the sacrifice would proceed. Whether to fashion the sacrificial dagger from silver, onyx, or obsidian, and whether to have their skin ritually flayed off of their body beforehand, and have their tongues and eyes removed, or to leave them whole before the sacrifice in the hopes of pleasing the Lady of Shadows with their beauty. All very important decisions to take into consideration, and to discuss, at length, just outside the twin's cell. Making sure to speak in languages they could understand.

A thoughtless and pointless cruelty, to be sure, but she had not survived drow society long enough to reach Matron status by skimping on the nastiness.

And now, at the height of the cerimony, just minutes before the main event, a group of adventurers had crashed through the stone ceiling. She grit her teeth and forced, through sheer willpower, her blood pressure to subside. That one there was obviously a Teifling, half-demon. And there were two drow as well. With any luck, she could just talk the adventurers into going away, and then send a hunting party or two out after them later. Then the mage (or was he just pretending to be a mage? What mage would have let himself fall to the ground like that without a spell?) had started talking to a patch of empty air, nixing the idea. The insane are seldom reasonable. So as he turned around, still talking to himself, she sheathed the knife and reached for her masterwork serpent-headed whip.

With negligent effort, she flicked it forward to get the madman's attention. Then everything went to the hells.

xxx

Ranma stared down at the ground. Where his hat was. His _damaged_ hat, two holes sizzling at the edges where the snake-whip-thingy had bit down and pulled it from his head. Holes that were slowly spreading.

The old Drow flicked the whip his way again, but this time, still looking down at his hat, he caught it just behind the head.

"Nobody..." He hissed softly, yet just loud enough to carry through the suddenly silent cavern. "... Touches... THE HAT! **GRAAAGH!**"

As he shifted forms to hybrid, gaining a great deal of height and more than quadrupling his muscle mass, his lunge turned into more of a stampede, catching the wide-eyed Matron by the throat and hurling her into a group of confused and shocked priestesses, then leaping bodily into the fray.

Soun nibbled at his fish as he offered a commentary.

"It seems your son has gone into some sort of berserker rage, Saotome. Every ounce of skill has gone straight out the window."

"True Tendo, but it appears that this Hybrid form, coupled with that rage, has given him enough sheer overwhelming physical strength and speed to counteract that."

"And now he's using the sword... oh dear kami... that's gruesome..."

Genma paled slightly at the horrendous actions, but didn't stop ladling out and swallowing the soup. Until something arced in his direction, smacking the ladle out of his hand, and landing with a splash in the pot. He looked down and stared at the decapitated head of the drow Matron, staring wide-eyed back at him. He set the pot to the side, suddenly no longer hungry.

"DEATH TO THE DEFILERS OF MY HAT! DEATH I SAY!"

By this time, the few surviving priestesses had completely ditched the idea of using their clerical spells in favor of fleeing in terror from the enraged werebeast. It would have been better if one of them hadn't had the bright idea of snatching the matrons silver dagger from her headless corpse, as that only enraged him further. Now the dagger was buried to the hilt in a stone wall, the offending priestess had been torn in half _with his bare hands_, and he had completely forgone use of his sword in favor of tooth and claw.

"RUN, COWARDS, RUN! FLEE MY WRATH AND LIVE IN TERROR OF THE DAY THAT I TRACK YOU DOWN, DISMEMBER YOU, AND DEFILE YOUR CORPSES IN UNIMAGINABLE WAYS! NONE ESCAPE MY WRATH FOREVER! I SHALL TRACK YOU DOWN TO THE VERY DEPTHS OF HELL FOR THIS GRIEVANCE AGAINST THE HAT!"

"Finished."

Ranma's anger drifted away as his hat was replaced on his head and he shrank back down to his humanoid form. While he'd been ranting and raging, Kasumi had splashed a little water on the hole to wash away the acidic poison, then carefully stitched a small bit of torn red cloth that had come from Ranma's cape over the holes. It was now good as new, with no indication that it had been damaged in the first place.

Ranma blinked and looked at the swamp of blood and body parts before him, then glanced down to confirm that, yes, he was pretty much soaked in blood and his sword was somewhere in the middle of that mess. Then shrugged.

"Meh. I guess I went a little overboard. I'll just put off tracking down those dirtbags for now."

"Note to self, Tendo. The boy's hat is _not_ a valid target during sparring matches."

"Agreed."

Meanwhile, Ranma was fishing through the blood and muck, aided by Nabiki, who didn't mind getting her hands dirty in the pursuit of gold. The matrons whip found its way into her apparently infinitely large sidepack, as did her jewelry and the silver dagger. Ranma was looking for something more specific than just 'loot' though.

And with a wide grin he found it, dragging the iron ring of keys out from under the gore. And frowning as he failed to manage to pry the unattached hand off of them. Kasumi sighed, rattled off a spell under her breath, and snapped her fingers. The hand let go of the keys and dropped to the ground, where it began splashing through the blood, skittering like a spider, flipping the occasional dropped ring it found, or gold coin, Nabiki's way.

"Now that's creepy. Lets see... which key goes to which lock, I wonder?"

xxx

Staggering through the forest with torn clothes, Kuno reflected upon his position. He was Tatewaki Kuno. Brave, strong, intelligent. Hungry.

He was finding within himself a whole new level of respect for Samurai that had learned to 'live off the land'. He'd never bothered to learn such a trick, reasoning that the Kuno fortunes had never, and would never fail to keep him fed. He'd never even missed a single meal before this... incident.

As such, knowing no better, he'd passed by several plants with edible roots or fruit that he could have eaten if he'd realized that he could.

Kuno paused as he listened to something growl... but it was not his stomach. He slowly turned and looked down. The rabbit was back... and it had brought a friend. He raised his bokken to attack... this time he would win!

"Verily!"

xxx

Fifteen minutes later, two rabbits cocked their hind legs up near Kuno's head.

xxx

"So... how's the weather like, then?"

"Lothorien el lenellien."

"Huh... well that's good to know."

"Detrorien ni elethelien sen..."

Ranma sighed.

"You know... this would be a whole lot easier if I could UNDERSTAND ANYTHING YOU SAID!"

"S-setleterien nesth..."

"Oh dear... it seems we have something of a language problem. And I won't get the 'Tongues' spell for another three levels..."

"E'etrimorien nes de?"

Eyes snapped to Tarre, who had begun talking in the language the elves used. Within seconds, the three were chatting up a storm. A storm that nobody else could understand. And for some reason the lyrical, musical tones of this language were giving certain members of the group a headache when they tried to comprehend it.

"Great..." Nabiki muttered. "... and not a single aspirin to be found in this place. Wonderful."

xxx

Cologne had long since withdrawn from the game to flip through the multiplying manuals. It seemed that every time she turned around, the pile got a little larger...

She was currently flipping through the manual on enchanting items, and had long since decided that Ranma had made a wise decision to sacrifice his armor at the very beginning in exchange for his new trinket. While it would be possible for him to make one himself without aid from the game at some point... it would be horrendously complicated.

Nothing like the simplicity of enchanting a club to hit harder, or a sword to cut deeper, or to add some elemental effect... the comparison would be like taking a five year old that had just learned simple maths and handing him a test on advanced geometry and calculus. Yes it was _possible_ that he could blunder through it and score a decent grade... just like it was _possible_ that son-in-law could have bound an effective spell like what was described to that amulet on his own. Just not likely.

The difference was if the child failed, it was just words on a paper. If son-in-law had tried and failed, the most likely result would be an invasion of screaming horrors from outside reality. Magic was picky like that... it either worked correctly, or lots of people tended to die. Lots of people had a tendency of dying even _if_ the magic had been worked correctly.

She whistled softly as she turned a page and a complicated pictogram used to bind a minor demon into some sort of metal weapon was revealed. The result was nasty... it seemed to result in a weapon that was partially flesh and likely intelligent to one degree or another as well. With any luck, that sunken orb that looked like an eyeball was just a stylized gem of some sort... but probably not.

The next page revealed a similar description for binding... lesser divinity? It seemed like the result would be at the opposite end of the spectrum, but apparently, binding an unwilling divinity into an object would result in some sort of spiteful curse on its weilder.

Demons, apparently, wouldn't bother with such as being summoned and bound to things was something of a daily grind for them. Destroy a civilization or two, get bound into an object, wait for the thing to break, get released, either into the hells or on the spot, repeat as neccessary. If they were bound into a weapon of some sort... it was only a plus, as chances were that they would be used to kill things. And if they couldn't kill on their own, being used to kill was a close second place.

Divinities apparently thought differently of the matter, making the weapons they were sealed in _much_ more dangerous to use. With a few noted exceptions, of course. Mostly being when the divinity in question had prompted a mortal into binding them for one reason or another in the first place. No reason to curse someone whose strings you, yourself are pulling, after all. Of course, most of those people ended up suddenly getting the idea to take a vacation in one hell-realm or another immediately after finishing their new weapon. Usually, they did not return.

Quite ominous.

She flipped the page again and reached a new chapter entitled 'Granting sentience to your blade.' This looked promising...

Meanwhile, Happosai was flipping through another manual... or at least, he looked like he was. In reality, he was hiding a skin mag behind it, and it's really rather surprising that he's managed to keep himself contained and quiet for so long. Moving right along...

Herb had picked up an encyclopedia of dragons. It was fascinating, learning more about his possible cousins. Although the book made it seem like most of them were little more than extremely large, ravenous beasts... absurd!

Then he frowned and considered... if the dragon who's blood he'd inherited had been terribly intelligent, how would the musk have herded it into the springs in the first place? Surely an intelligent dragon would have known the danger that cursed place represented?

And yet the idea of dragons being no more than mindless beasts made bile rise in Herbs throat, it was so repugnant to consider. And yet... the springs?

Herb would be caught in a circular loop of logic and mental conundrums for quite some time, it seemed.

Kodachi... had fallen asleep in the corner, dreaming of games that ate people.

xxx

A.N.

Considered doing the dark elf thing, but I didn't like the idea too much. A few tweaks, however, and two moon elves replace the drow twins.

Oh, and the 'Elvish'... well... don't bother looking it up to see what it translates to. I actually made it up of the top of my head as I typed. It _sounds_ right, but Tolkein would probably translate it to something like "the purple sky rains snails" or "Electromagnetic toilet brushes for hire" or something like that. Complete gibberish.


End file.
